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flac News | Vol. 23, No. 2 PUBLIC INTEREST LAW ALLIANCE U P D A T E Focus on PILA register lawyers: Katie Dawson BL An interview with one of the volunteer lawyers who have signed up to PILA’s Pro Bono Referral Scheme. How did you find out about the PILA Pro Bono Referral Scheme? I first heard about PIlA when I volunteered with FlAC. A senior colleague and friend then recommended me to PIlA and I believe that was how I was first contacted. Did you find the scheme easy to deal with? Very easy. A request is sent out and if it is an area of law or an issue in which I have expertise or interest, I can reply offering to assist. A meeting is generally arranged with the organisation to see what it is looking for in terms of legal research or advice and how volunteers might assist them. What were the most challenging aspects of referrals that you have taken on through the scheme? Probably the time limits, but they are mostly self-imposed! PIlA and the organisations understand how long research might take and I never feel pressure to complete research or to volunteer for particular projects. The flexibility afforded is excellent for practitioners. How did the experience complement your regular work? I have found it very helpful. A lot of my work has involved researching how legal issues are addressed in other jurisdictions and considering what might work here in Ireland. Many organisations are looking for help in terms of advocating for legislative reform because they can see through their own work what reform is needed. In areas where I myself routinely practice, this is of assistance to me in terms of representing clients. Would you do more pro bono work like this? Absolutely. PIlA plays an important role in placing NGOs, community groups and legal/advice centres in touch with practitioners who may be able to help them with legal issues. Barristers have a long tradition of pro bono work; it is something that is valued by our profession. I have always been interested in rightsbased areas of law. It is fantastic to have the opportunity to work with organisations who offer services to often vulnerable and sometimes disenfranchised groups within our society. What they do matters to us all. To be able to play a role in assisting them, even in a small capacity, is very rewarding. Would you recommend doing pro bono work through the referral scheme to other barristers? I highly recommend it, particularly for lawyers practising in rights-based areas of law. It is perhaps a cliché, but many of us became lawyers because we believe in protecting, upholding and vindicating people's rights. We see our laws as reflecting the values we hold as a society. Pro bono work gives us a way to offer help to organisations working to vindicate people's rights. It is a win-win situation for all involved. Meeting of European clearinghouses Staff update In May, PIlA met with representatives from other european clearinghouses for a collaborative workshop and know-how exchange. The meeting was organised by PIlnet, the global network for public interest law, at its european office in Budapest, Hungary. As part of its work to bring together private sector lawyers and NGOs and advance local cultures of pro bono work, PIlnet convenes an annual european Pro Bono Forum. At the meeting in Budapest, the group exchanged know-how about collabora tions, organised by the clearing - houses, between lawyers and NGOs. PIlA and other clearinghouse representatives Maeve Regan of PIlA at the clearinghouse meeting. spoke to with PIlnet about ideas for the upcoming Pro Bono Forum, which will be held in October in Warsaw. Top of the agenda was building the foundations for a europe-wide pro bono network. All in PIlA & FlAC were sorry to say goodbye to colleague lianne Murphy recently. We wish her much success in her new job with Age Action and we welcome her successor as Project Officer, Mairead Healy (see Mairead’s article on pg 14). 12 F L A C N E W S l A P R I L - J U N E 2 0 1 3
flac News | Vol. 23, No. 2 The former Minister said: A state apology to the Transgender Community? If Malta can do it, why not Ireland? We let them [the transgender community] down ... I apologise for failing to react at the opportune time when decisions taken did not grant [her] the rights she requested and for failing to enact the necessary legislation before. And the current Minister replied: It’s about human rights. even if it’s about one person, we must guarantee that that person’s rights are safeguarded. everybody must be treated equally and we all have our rights and liberties. ... The law will not affect many people because the transgender persons are not many but their victory is everybody’s victory. This is a victory for freedom. Lydia Foy pictured with President Michael D. Higgins in December 2012. Photo by Derek Speirs and with kind permission of the IHRC Was this a report of the debate in the Dail when legislation to recognise transgender persons was finally passed? And was the first speaker referring to lydia Foy’s long struggle for recognition in her preferred female gender? Sadly, not yet. This was the debate in the Maltese parliament in June when it passed a Bill to recognise transgender persons and allow them to marry in their own gender. And the references were not to lydia Foy but to Joanne Cassar, who had been refused the right to marry in her own gender and had made a complaint to the european Court of Human Rights. The Maltese Bill is not the most advanced or progressive gender recognition legislation in europe. In fact, it is fairly restrictive, but it was a big step forward for hitherto intensely conservative Malta. And what was most impressive about it was the speed with which it was delivered and the generous apology to Joanne Cassar and the Maltese trans community. A new labour government was elected in Malta in March and during the election it had promised to withdraw the state’s opposition to Joanne Cassar’s case in Strasbourg and bring in gender recognition legislation.Within three months, by the end of June, it had done so; further, the outgoing conservative government party had changed its stance as well. It was the deputy leader of the former government party who acknowledged that his party had let down the transgender community. It was the new Minister for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil liberties who said the law should be passed even if it affected only one person. By contrast, and despite a promise in the Programme for Government to bring in gender recognition legislation, the Irish State has entered a full defence to the new legal proceedings begun this year by lydia Foy. Dr Foy is trying to implement the judgment of the High Court in her case five years ago that the State had breached her rights under the european Convention on Human Rights. But there are hopeful signs that attitudes are changing and that there is a movement to end the injustice that transgender persons have suffered for so long. Sinn Fein published a private members Bill in May that would provide for a liberal and inclusive scheme for recognising transgender persons. It has been welcomed by Transgender equality Network Ireland (TeNI) and FlAC. And Independent Senator Katherine Zappone has also been preparing a Gender Recognition Bill for discussion in the Seanad. The Seanad Bill also takes account of the most recent developments in gender recognition legislation in europe and in Argentina and again it has been warmly welcomed by TeNI and FlAC. Both Bills would do away with highly intrusive and demeaning medical criteria for gender recognition and with the proposal by the Government’s advisory group on this issue that married transgender persons should have to divorce as a pre-condition for recognition in their preferred gender. This ‘forced divorce’ policy has been dropped by countries like Germany and Austria as a breach of the rights of transgender persons and it has become meaningless in the growing number of countries that provide for marriage equality. Hopefully, the discussion around the two new Bills will help to shift public debate on this issue away from a narrow and excessively legalistic perspective and towards the view expressed by the Maltese Minister that transgender rights are human rights and a victory for the transgender community will be a victory for all. F L A C N E W S l A P R I L - J U N E 2 0 1 3 13
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